Ghosts
by the Ambassador
Summary: What was the world's greatest trainer doing at the top of nigh-impassable Mount Silver? DSverse


A/N: More Pokéfic. Good grief. And another attempt to figure out one of the game's great mysteries. This one was inspired somewhat by a comment someone left on TVtropes, under the Nightmare Fuel section...

As with my last fic, this is set in the _game world only_. (Though after writing this I ran into a certain cocky, spiky Gym Leader on Cinnabar again, and his attitude then made this ever-so-slightly AU...) For what it's worth, I don't think Ash Ketchum is the same person as Red. They're both protagonists; they dress the same; but what I remember most strongly about Ash from my anime-watching days is that he's very strongly tied to the consensual world. The world with other people, the world we all make together. Ash cares about other people's opinions, not in the 'I must be like everyone else' way, but in the 'People are important. Listening to them and having time for them is a good idea' way.

Red, on the other hand, was always kythed by me as being much quieter, more withdrawn. Just as idealistic, maybe just as reckless too, but less desirous of human company for its own sake. Ash travels with companions; Red travels alone but for his Pokémon. (It also became my headcanon at some point that he turned up in Vermilion in _time_ for the party on the SS Anne, but missed it on purpose because the idea of it gave him the cold horrors.)

Each of them has his strengths, and each has his weaknesses, and sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.

Also, tiny bit of clarification; suicune(in lowercase, as a common noun)is a name used in the Kanto/Johto area for the north wind. Whether the wind is named for the Pokémon or the Pokémon for the wind is an open question.

Anyway, I don't own Pokémon. I think you all know that much by now.

**Ghost**

"No, I don't understand what happened at all, I'm afraid. I mean, we were battling! It's not like a Gym Leader to just up and leave in the middle of a battle. It's not even like a Trainer.

"Yeah, I'd noticed he's odd. I mean, this kind of clued me in on that! He always seemed normal before though. Normal-ish.

"Okay, I guess I can tell you, but I hope it makes sense to you because it certainly doesn't to me. See, we were battling, as you do, and, well, chatting a bit as we did, also as you do. Well, not even that, really. Just mentioning stuff, in between directing our Pokémon. Just a random sentence or two, that's why I don't...Sorry. Anyway, I said something like 'I fought this weird trainer the other day, he had a crazy-strong Pikachu and didn't say a word', and then he...well, he flipped! Sort of froze, then he started demanding to know when and where and what did the weird trainer look like and what were his other Pokémon and did he have all the Kanto Gym badges and had I seen him anywhere before and did I know where he was now, and all sorts of stuff.

"Well, I didn't know most of that! I mean, I knew what the guy looked like and where I'd met him and what his team was, obviously. But after I fought him he just Flew off on his Charizard and I guess he could have gone anywhere after that. And I don't know if he had badges, I didn't ask to see them and he didn't show them to me. He wasn't wearing them but that doesn't mean anything. And I don't know if I ever saw him before. He was really ordinary-looking, maybe I saw him before and didn't recognise him.

"Oh...older than me. Dark hair. Black, I think, or really dark brown. I'm not sure about his eyes. He had this baseball cap on pulled down low, so I couldn't really see, and anyway the wind was in my face. That was one of the weird things, it was so cold up there but he wasn't even wearing a jacket. Just a shirt and jeans and this little vest thing and that baseball cap. Ordinary clothes I guess, unless you're on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere! He had an ordinary sort of face, too. You wouldn't look twice at him in a crowd, I mean.

"Anyway, I told Blue all that and BAM, he just slammed out of the dojo! You do think he's okay, don't you? Only I saw his face as he left, and, well, he wasn't smirking like usual. He looked really upset, kind of desperate..."

Up here on the mountain, the air is thin. Up here, up here, where the air is clear, it feels like drinking lemonade, the bubbles buzzing your brain. Iced lemonade, the suicune's howling. Icey on his eyelashes. He spreads his arms and the suicune tears at them, tugging at his clothing. It wants to pull him into the sky with it.

But he's too heavy. Adventures are heavy, aren't they? People are heavy, all the people you carry around with you, inside your head. Inside his head. Memories are heavy, Pokémon are heavy. He doesn't want anything stopping him from flying so he's released them all, but this six he couldn't. They stayed. That's okay, though. Pikachu weighs nearly nothing, and even Snorlax isn't nearly as heavy as a person.

His thoughts are light though. Cold and airy and free. Like this place. Now he's here, it's all okay, because nothing matters up here except the wind.

Everything looks so pretty from up here. The paintbox country and the garden country all neat and orderly below the clouds. You can't see all the hurt, from here. You can't hear all the noise. The suicune's roars drown it out. And he's in neither of them, he's on the edge, he's in no man's land, and he is No-Man.

Did you ever wish you could be a puff of air, or a cloud? Did you ever want to be a raindrop or a rock?

Pikachu is sitting on his foot. It wants him to be a person again, bother it. He's not about to go back down there to the heavy hazy heated world where all his memories are. People hailing him or wanting him or hating him. He can do without it, and a lightning mouse sitting on him won't change that. Rocks do have Pokémon sit on them sometimes and they never do anything about it.

Sometime after Mewtwo began to cry and wail inside the Master Ball, inside his head, it all began to get too much for him. He let it go and told them to dig out the entrance to Cerulean Cave again, the place Mewtwo called _unknowndungeon_. He isn't a Psychic but he could hear Mewtwo, not words, not feelings, not pictures, just jumbly jagged shapes that got into his nightmares. _Unknowndungeon heat poison coolwater needlesinmyskin needlesinmyeyes alone please suffocateme metalboxes icommitnocrime. Weaveway waterwise, stone music. Unknowndungeon i am. Unknown unown unowned alone. . Needlefucker scalpelfucker hurt HURT hurt you. _

_Hurt_

_Wantalone._

He let Mewtwo go, it fled into the land, not looking back. He smashed the Master Ball against a rock. Just kept hitting and hitting till there was only bent metal, broken twisted wires. It was a bad ball. A cheat's ball. It deserved to die. But it didn't help him, everything was still too much, the air was molten lead, his mother's touch was a branding iron, concerned voices scraped rusty razorblades down his spine. Didn't they see they were making it worse? He needed to go, get away from them all, get away from everything, get out!

Up here the air is clear. It's air again, air that tastes of lemonade. The razorblades are gone. The branding irons. He's free.

Free to be alone and cold and peacefully drop the weights of his person-ness, one two three, till the day he'll be able to ride the suicune away...

Stupid Pikachu. Chattering at him angrily like that. It doesn't understand. He loves Pikachu, and he knows it loves him. Why can't it understand?

Bother Pikachu.

Stand on tip-toe, stretch out arms to touch the clouds...

what?

heard something

footsteps

FOOTSTEPS PERSON HUMAN NO NO NO

not here

safe here!

heat, the air solidifies

oh gods

no

eyes

brown eyes. Looking at him!

NO

his heart drumming terror

clench fists-fight them, make them leave

bag. Belt with Pokéballs. Second set of footsteps-tame Pokémon, walking at its trainer's side.

A Trainer

Must be good to have got here

But _he's_ better than anyone

If two Trainers' eyes meet...

_Battle_ them and make them leave!

"He was a strange one. But his Pokémon must have really loved him-you know, he didn't have to say a word? He'd just look at them and they knew what to do. I don't think I'll ever be able to get that kind of rapport with my Pokémon.

"Strong, too...I remember just thinking 'oh gods, we're for it now' over and over during that battle! I hadn't even come prepared or anything, I hadn't expected any Trainers, let alone one so strong. I'd just set out to do some exploring...

"But we did it! I am SO proud of my team, you can't imagine. He was so much stronger than us, but we won.

"...No, you're right. I'm not very happy about it. I mean, not that I beat a tough Trainer-I mean, seriously!-but the way he acted...When the battle was done, I tried to say hello to him. Ask him his name, you know? Find out who he was, what he was doing there. But...he just sort of kept backing away from me, and then he fell over a rock and picked himself up and started running, and I was chasing after him but then he called out his Charizard-the poor thing, it was only half conscious-and jumped on its back and just flew off as if all the devils of hell were chasing him.

"I should have flown after him. But my Pokémon were tired too, and the wind was so strong...and maybe he was just in a hurry to get to a Pokémon Centre, right?

"Only, when I got to the Mount Silver centre, the lady behind the counter said nobody but me had been there today.

"I guess I feel a bit like I've seen a ghost."

Blue stands on top of Mount Silver, shivering with cold, and wanting very badly to lie down and howl.

So close. So damn close...That stupid kid! That stupid, stupid kid!

Red won't come back here now. Blue remembers how paranoid and jumpy he'd become, the last time he saw him. He'll never come back to the mountain, now that he's been discovered and beaten here once.

Stupid fucking Red. Going crazy without warning. Running off without a word to anyone. Hiding in the fucking armpit of _nowhere_, for _three years_, when people all over Kanto were fucking _worshipping_ him as the Boy Who Ended Team Rocket, when Gramps had gone half mad worrying about him, when his mom just spent all her time crying, when Blue...

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_...

Whatever. Shit. He's not going to give up. At least he knows now that the bastard's definitely alive. No matter if he has to go over every godsdamn inch of the planet with a nit comb, he's going to find him.

"_And when I DO find you_," Blue screams at the top of his voice, "_you're gonna rue the day you were fucking BORN!_"

Nobody replies, save the suicune, and the mocking ghosts that ride it.

-fin-


End file.
